Too many cooks in the N.Y. Senate kitchen

Leadership plan may be recipe for new dysfunction

A proposal by four breakaway Democrats that they become the third part of a ruling triumvirate in the state Senate is as presumptuous as it is unnecessary. It could also be the first step toward the type of dysfunction the state Legislature has only recently abandoned. The idea should be dropped.

The four-member Independent Democratic Conference is taking advantage of the current uncertainty surrounding Senate leadership next term. Despite their best gerrymandering efforts - which included adding a made-for-GOP 63rd seat - Republicans are in danger of losing their tenuous majority. Democrats hold a 31-30 lead at the moment, with two races yet to be decided (one, ironically, in that new, supposedly Republican-friendly district).

The IDC first indicated it might caucus with the Republicans but has evidently decided, why play kingmaker when you can make a play for a crown yourself? The senators - three downstaters and David Valesky of Syracuse - now argue a three-way conference of Democrats, Republicans and themselves should run the Senate.

What could go wrong?

This posturing for power is uncomfortably reminiscent of the 2009-10 state Senate session, in which Democrats won the majority for the first time in 40 years, then promptly imploded. An attempted Republican coup, aided by a pair of Democratic turncoats, led to an unseemly power struggle that ground business to a halt for more than a month and covered all involved in infamy.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has shown an ability to work with both sides of the aisle but he's staying out of this mess. Who can blame him?

It's bad enough that voters like those in Monroe County who backed Democrat Ted O'Brien in hopes he would be in the majority party will have their hopes dashed if the IDC caucuses with Republicans. Splitting Senate leadership three ways is an arbitrary, unwieldy and unnecessary fix for a problem that didn't exist, until the IDC created it.